WDFW Enforcement is divided into two patrol sections, Marine and Land, although responsibilities often overlap and the two sections commonly assist each other.
The following are real life events that provide a snapshot of fish and wildlife enforcement activity in Washington State. These examples show the diversity of issues that Fish and Wildlife Police Officers ("Game Wardens") encounter while protecting your natural resources, but are by no means all encompassing of our many accomplishments. All violations are considered alleged unless a conviction has been secured.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Yesterday, we included some information in our "Weekly Highlights" about recent ATV patrols in the "Yellow Zone." We asked Regional Enforcement Captain Chris Anderson to provide us with a history of the Yellow Zone, and the purpose of its seasonal closure. Below is a brief history of this beautiful area of Washington State, and how the Yellow Zone came to be.

The Moses Lake Off-Road Vehicle Park was established in
1976 under an agreement between the Department of Game, Department of Natural
Resources, the Bureau of Reclamation and Grant County. The state agencies, at
the time, wanted more protection for wildlife and the habitat located along the
north shore of the Potholes Reservoir and Crab Creek, and the county agreed to
establish a seasonal closure from October to December. This closure was designed
to protect terrestrial habitat and reduce the potential disturbances to
waterfowl hunters in the fall caused by motorized vehicles.

In 1984 representatives from the Department of Game,
Grant County and the Bureau of Reclamation created a new management plan and
land use agreement that divided the entire area located between the Potholes
Reservoir and the City of Moses Lake into three colored zones that were to be
managed separately: Green Zone (open to motorized traffic year around), Red
Zone (permanently closed to motorized traffic), and Yellow Zone (seasonally
closed to motorized traffic). Under the new land use agreement that would allow
the county to expand the off-road vehicle park, Grant County officials agreed
to extend the Yellow Zone closure dates from 3 to 5 months, starting October 1st
and ending February 1st. The Department's goal was to ensure
adequate protection of wildlife and to maintain waterfowl hunting
opportunities.

In 1989 the Department of Wildlife agreed to support
Grant County and IAC officials in their quest to obtain some private property
in the area to again expand the park boundaries. In exchange for the State's
support, county officials agreed to extend the seasonal closure from 5 to 9
months of every year. The closure begins October 1st and ends June 30th
of the following year. The expanded closure was designed to protect nesting
shorebirds that depend on the area in the spring. Again, the fall closure was
to eliminate disturbances by motorized traffic during the migratory waterfowl
hunting season.

The Yellow Zone encompasses a large area consisting of
medium and small bodies of water, sand dunes, brush, trees, and islands created
by the rise and fall of the waters of the reservoir. The outside boundary area
is partially fenced with signs displayed in an effort to keep vehicles out of the area
during the nine-month closure. The WDFW Wildlife Program has asked that enforcement of
the seasonal closure be a high law enforcement priority, so local Fish and
Wildlife police officers have vigorously enforced the regulations over the
years.

Unfortunately, some folks just don't seem to respect the law...

This kid decided to take his parents' new jeep out for a spin in the Yellow Zone. Guess what he got? A citation and a towing bill.

These individuals were recently cited for riding their dirt bikes in the Yellow Zone while closed.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Off-Road Fun?

Captain Anderson and Officer McGary spent several hours on ATVs over the weekend, patrolling the seasonally closed Yellow Zone at the Moses Lake Sand Dunes. They contacted and cited approximately a dozen operators who unlawfully ventured into the closure.

Officer McGary cites two operators for riding in a closed area.

The officers also used the ATVs to respond to several serious injury ORV accidents for the sheriff’s office. One young man had flipped his motorcycle and crashed landed. When Officers arrived, his leg was twisted 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Although he had broken his upper femur, he initially refused aid, saying he thought he could walk out on his own -- now that’s hardcore! Officers also responded to another accident where a woman rolled a quad over on top of her, resulting in a possible broken collarbone.

That night, Officer McGary and the Captain responded to a serious injury accident that had occurred way back in the dunes between a sand rail and a Chevrolet Suburban. Aid units arrived on scene using 4-wheel drive rigs, and removed the injured female passenger from the rail. Two women in the Suburban were also injured and transported to the hospital. The rail driver, who refused to take a breath test, was taken into custody after Officer McGary tested his sobriety and determined that he was likely intoxicated. The man was transported back to the entrance of the park where a local DRE trooper also determined that the driver would likely register quite high. The responding deputies issued the driver a citation for driving an ORV while intoxicated.

Sand rail that crashed into a Chevy Suburban

Short Crab

Officer Do patrolled
Westport and checked commercial crab offloads.During the inspection he noticed one vessel had delivered over 24%
undersized crabs. He contacted
Officer Hopkins and Student Officer Apple to assist.After measuring all of the crab, Officer Do contacted the vessel's Skipper and notified him that he would be cited. Officer Do conducted another
check a few days later and noticed an excess of undersized crab in the
offload.Sgt. Chadwick and Student Officer Apple
arrived to assist.After going through
the entire offload, there were 132 undersized Dungeness crab, again over 20% of
the load was short.The skipper of the
vessel will be cited accordingly.

﻿

Rampage in the Woods

Officers McCormick, Day, Busching
and Christensen responded to a multi-agency manhunt for a 41-year old armed
subject in the Twisp River drainage near War Creek.Officer Day arrived and was notified that an
Okanogan County Sheriff's Deputy had responded to a call the previous evening where witnesses
reported the subject behaving oddly and armed with a machete.The mentally ill man’s elderly parents
were contacted, and confirmed that the suspect had not been taking his
medication and had fled from their campsite into the woods with two handguns
and a machete.In what can only be
described as a bad combination, the armed man, while high on Oxycontin, had started a small forest fire near the campground. As
Forest Service firefighters hiked into the burn area to evaluate the fire, gun
shots rang out from the river bottom.All
firefighting personnel were quickly evacuated.

WDFW officers joined with county deputies in setting up a hasty
perimeter as intermittent gun shots and shouting rang out through
the thick brush near the edge of the forest.Special Response Teams from Okanogan and Chelan County arrived on scene to
help shore up the perimeter.Law
enforcement officers used a Forest Service fire truck to knock back some of the
hotter areas of the fire that were threatening to cross the road. Other
Officers used loudspeakers and aircraft in an attempt to either call out the
armed man or pinpoint his position from the air.Once it became clear the subject was not going
to come out of the woods, Officers began a careful, coordinated foot search of
the area of dense timber and brush. While moving along the edge of the Twisp
River with a search team, through thick trees
and dense smoke, Officer Day observed 'something' trying to climb a birch tree. Initially he thought it may have been a black bear attempting to escape the mayhem of fire and barking patrol dogs.However, it quickly became
apparent that this was no bear, but the subject they were searching for, as Officer Day repeatedly saw the man slip and fall back to the ground. The man's location was relayed to
another search team, which finally apprehended the man without
incident.

Halibut
Season Opener, Marine Area 5

Officers Balazs, Davidson and Sgt.
Anderson conducted a boat patrol out of Sekiu for the opening day of the
halibut season in Marine Area 5.This
was a highly anticipated season and Officers saw a lot of anglers.
While the participation level was quite high, overall success for the fishermen
was average.Most anglers
our Officers contacted were following the rules, however, they did have to address a few 'mistakes.'

The
worst offense of the day was on a boat in Marine
Area 4 (closed for halibut), where Officers found two men fishing for halibut,
with one 30-pounder already in possession. The officers also encountered several
anglers in violation of rockfish/bottomfish rules. During the Day 1 patrol, Officers boarded 35
vessels and contacted just under 100 fishermen.Additional violations encountered were failure to record catch, fishing
with barbed hooks, and various boating safety violations.

﻿

Officers Balazs and Davidson with some of the illegal "catch of the day!"

﻿

Bad Call!

Officer Erickson
received an anonymous tip indicating that a group of five people were fishing a closed
creek in Pend Oreille County. The caller gave him a vehicle description but no license
plate. Officer Erickson quickly responded to the area, but was unable to locate the vehicle.
He then patrolled a nearby lake in hopes of finding the suspects, but still no
luck...

However, when Officer Erickson returned to the closed creek, he found the suspect vehicle and
five people just arriving to camp. He made contact and
questioned the group about fishing the creek. The group was able to provide
Officer Erickson with receipts from Newport, which proved they had been in town at the time the call came in.
Hmmmm. After a little more digging, Officer Erickson identified the anonymous caller and called him back. The
caller admitted that he had gotten into a fight with his family
earlier in the day because he had not been invited on their annual camping trip. To get back at them, he falsely reported the illegal fishing activity. The
caller was cited for making a false report.

Friday, May 25, 2012

As expected, angler participation was high during the recent halibut season opener in Marine Areas 3 and 4, and this delicious
table fare was pursued with a vengeance!

There were well over 100 boats out of La Push
and 250+ boats out of Neah Bay each day of the three-day, ten Officer emphasis
patrol. While compliance was comparatively good, Officers issued plenty of citations
to deserving individuals for a variety of violations. Officer Fairbanks did an
outstanding job organizing the emphasis patrol and coordinating activities for
the participating officers.Here are a few highlights:

During day one of the emphasis patrol, the
ocean was less than pleasant and many fishermen stayed in the Straits.One boat was found in possession of closed season canary rockfish.Other
violations included possessing fish in an unlawful condition (mutilating to
hide closed season species, fish under minimum length, etc.), failing to record
halibut, and possession of closed season rockfish east of the Tatoosh-Bonilla
line.

Student Officer Marthaller and canary rockfish

The next day halibut season was closed, but
nice weather and calm seas had everyone in search of bottom fish.Officers Anderson and Marthaller and Sgt.
Chadwick worked a remote resort area from shore, monitoring boats with limits of
fish coming in. Some were filleting their catch and then heading back out for
an additional (and illegal) limit.As the boats returned to shore in the afternoon,Sgt. Chadwick and Officer Marthaller
made contact while Officer Anderson kept track of everyone. Over the next three
hours, two citations were issued for exceeding the limit for rockfish, one
citation was issued for possession of six undersize lingcod and warnings were
given to others for over limit rockfish.

Officers are well aware of all of the tricks folks
use to cheat the system, so they monitor behavior closely to zero in on
potential illegal activity. One case involving a couple of guys and their ‘diabolical’
poaching plan began with a boat coming into port at 10am on day two of the patrol.Officers covertly watched the two men fillet three
lingcod (you can only have one each for the area fished) before heading back
out a short time later. They returned to port around 6:30 that evening.... one man got off
at the dock, while the operator took the boat out to a mooring buoy. Ok – so what
do you think is going on here? The man on the dock spent some time looking
around, then took a skiff out to the mooring buoy to get the other guy off of
the boat. The two had a short discussion, and one lingcod was held up high before
being put in the skiff. The two men then came back to the dock….. so what’s the
problem? Well, Officer Anderson had observed the boat operator put another fish
in a plastic bag and stuff it in a cooler. Upon contact the two men said they
had caught two lingcod “and a couple of green ling” earlier in the day (remember,
we watched them fillet three lingcod?).They denied having any fish back at the boat. The two lingcod were
inspected in their freezer and a third lingcod was found. Sgt. Chadwick
explained what he had witnessed earlier and told them he believed there were
more fish back at the boat. The pair not only ‘fessed up, but told Sgt. Chadwick that there was also
a closed season halibut in possession. The extra lingcod and halibut were
recovered and citations were issued.

But citations weren’t the only thing keeping
our Officers busy…..

Right before dark on the second day, Officers
were just outside of Neah Bay in the patrol boat when Officer Anderson noticed
a vessel in between an island and some rocks. As he took a closer look through
his binoculars, he saw a man trying to get his attention.Not knowing exactly what was going on, our
Officers responded and found a Sea-Doo dead in the water in the middle of a
kelp patch.Officers were able to get
close enough to talk to the riders and ask what happened…. to which the skipper
replied, “DWS: Driving While Stupid!” Apparently he had tried to take his Sea-Doo
through the kelp and… well, you know the rest.The watercraft drifted close enough to the patrol vessel to hook up a
tow line, and our officers were able to return it to port.The Coast Guard was notified of the
situation, and appreciated our Officers’ help.

The third day of the emphasis patrol, found
Officers Anderson, Apple, and Hopkins out on the water, where they located
a vessel 1.5 miles inside an area closed to halibut fishing known as the Yelloweye
Rockfish Conservation Zone. Citations were issued for closed area fishing.

Officers later stopped a vessel for a routine
inspection. They found five mutilated lingcod fillets (to avoid size
restrictions) and one halibut. The lingcod was hidden underneath filleted
halibut in plastic baggies, with the fisherman claiming the halibut belonged to
a friend, and the cod fillets were from the previous day’s fishing adventure (of
course). Officer Anderson pointed out the fact that the lingcod fillets were
suspiciously supple, and not cold to the touch, indicating that fish had
recently been landed. The men were cited for Unlawful Fishing 2nd for the over
limit amount of lingcod on the vessel, and for possessing mutilated fish (lingcod).

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Officer McGary thought the Quincy Lake
fisherman looked vaguely familiar upon initial contact, but when the man asked
the Officer if he remembered him from a contact last year, McGary couldn’t
quite put his finger on it (similar conversations usually go something like: "You
wrote me a chicken #@% ticket I didn’t deserve, how do you sleep at
night?").

Sure enough, Officer McGary had pinched this
fisherman the previous year for not having life jackets onboard his boat. As the
man explained this, McGary braced himself for what might come next. You can
imagine his surprise when the man told him that, since receiving that ticket,
he has made sure to always have enough PFDs on board his boat for himself and
his passengers. He further explained that, a month after receiving the ticket,
he was out on the Pacific Ocean with his family when his boat began to take on
water and sank. Everyone on board his boat was wearing a PFD, and nobody was
injured.

The fisherman thanked Officer McGary for his
professionalism, and told him that without the reminder the previous year, he
probably would not have had enough life jackets with him that day on the ocean.
The thankful fisherman told Officer McGary that the ticket actually saved his
life. Wow! We don’t get that kind of introspection everyday....

Crabby Crabbers

It's bad enough when low catch rates make it
hard for commercial crab fishermen in North Puget Sound to scratch together a
living. The high price can help offset this some, if not for people stealing
crab from the traps.... and sometimes stealing the traps themselves. Imagine
someone breaking into your car and stealing your wallet... or, worse yet,
stealing your car and yourwallet. Not much difference here,
except that these fishermen don’t have insurance, and this kind of property
crime is hard to detect. Who do you call if you do witness this kind of theft?
The Fish and Wildlife Police.

Officer Rosenberger recently responded to
just such a call in plain clothes and his personal vehicle within ten minutes
of the report. Utilizing a camera with a large telephoto lens, he photographed
the suspect vessel as the operator and deckhand pulled six commercial pots that
did not belong to them. And in case you're wondering, nobody's confused here –
these are fishermen who know one another, and all have crab gear marked in such
a way as to distinguish it from someone else’s (think Deadliest Catch).
The suspects removed the legal sized crab before putting the pots back into the
water. Officers Gaston and Downes arrived in the area shortly after, and
together with Officer Rosenberger, they devised a plan to catch the thieves the
next time they went out.

As the suspect vessel got underway the next
time, Officer Rosenberger again photographed the crime, this time from an
unmarked vehicle, as the outlaws pulled four more commercial crab pots
belonging to others and stole numerous crab from within. Meanwhile, Officer
Gaston observed the vessel’s return to the dock and watched as the suspects
loaded their stolen crab into their vehicle. As the two suspects drove away,
Officers Rosenberger and Downes performed a vehicle stop and detained them
until Officer Gaston arrived to question them. After a few lies were told, the
truth finally came out. Both suspects confessed in a written statement to
pulling gear that didn’t belong to them and stealing crab. They also failed to
possess the mandatory transport documents for the 66 pounds of crab they had in
the vehicle. The crab and vessel were seized for forfeiture proceedings.
Officers will be charging the two in Skagit County with 10 counts of Unlawful
Interference 1st degree, Theft 3rd, unlawful
transportation, and no driver’s license on person while operating a motor
vehicle.

﻿

Vessel seized for forfeiture

﻿

A String of Bad Luck

If you're drunk, it’s probably a good idea not to ask a cop for a tow.

Officer Stephenson was in the Point Defiance area of Pierce County when
an individual came up to her asking for a tow strap or chain to pull him out of
the ditch. Officer Stephenson advised him that she did not possess the equipment
he needed, but proceeded to drive toward the location where the man indicated
he had tried to “pull his truck off the road” and got stuck.

Upon rounding a corner, Officer Stephenson observed what appeared to be
skid marks off of the pavement, into the gravel, and.... a white SUV smashed
into a tree. It appeared that the individual had taken the corner a bit too
fast, and (luckily) the tree stopped what could have been a very exciting
descent down a steep hill. Officer Stephenson could smell the odor of alcohol
coming from the man, and he admitted to drinking a 24 oz. beer around 9am.
Officer Stephenson requested a Trooper to respond to the scene. The subject
performed a field sobriety test, although not very well, and was placed under
arrest for DUI after blowing a .175. His "string of bad luck," as he
called it, would probably not be nearly as bad... if he wasn't a repeat DUI
offender.

Clean and Sober?

Officer Kirsch contacted a subject at the Gardener Road boat launch in
Burlington who had an expired registration on his truck and no back bumper. As
it turns out, he also had no drivers license (revoked). What he did have,
however, was a warrant from Marysville PD...

Officer Kirsch noted that the subject was very lethargic, but upon
questioning, he was adamant that he was a former drug user and had been
clean for seven months. As it turns out, he had just finished injecting heroin.
A WSP K-9 unit was brought in and the dog quickly 'hit' on several articles in
the cab of the truck. After all the dust settled, Officer Kirsch helped recover
an ounce of heroin, two ounces of meth, several hundred grams of pot, (some
packaged for sale) and a small amount of hashish. Several heroin needles, meth
and marijuana pipes, scales, and packaging were also located in the truck.
Charges will be filed in Skagit County -- when the subject is released from the
Marysville jail after serving time for his warrant, he will head on over to the
Skagit County Jail to serve some time for Possession with Intent to Deliver.

Some of the illegal substances found during the search of the vehicle

Officer Kirsch cuffs the suspect

WSP K-9 Unit

Something's Fishy

While providing an enforcement presence
during the ever-popular Spring Chinook season on the Columbia River, Officers
Anderson and Scherzinger followed up on a tip from a private citizen. Sergeant
Chadwick received information about a man attempting to exceed the daily limit
of salmon by catching one salmon in the morning and returning to the river
again in the afternoon to continue fishing. Officers Anderson and Scherzinger
located the suspect’s camp and waited for him to return. When he arrived at his
camp, he decided to lie upon questioning, and told the officers he didn’t catch
anything. Suspecting something was fishy, the Officers pressed the suspect
until a wild spring Chinook was removed from his boat - only hatchery fish can
be kept.